‘It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water.’ — This historian wasn’t afraid to confront the billionaires at Davos about their greed pic.twitter.com/TiXSJZd89M
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 29, 2019
Didn’t find a space to post this during Davos, but now Bregman’s work looks to be going viral, as the Youngs say…
Okay, so now @TuckerCarlson sent me this email, after I asked him when the interview is gonna air (was supposed to be on tonight). Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/AKaNEjm2S2
— Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) February 12, 2019
Hard to think of a more fitting poster child for ‘Expropriate Unearned Wealth’ than Tucker Carlson, yes?
More on this topic, from the Guardian:
No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there (May 2017)
Fightback against the billionaires: the radicals taking on the global elite (Feb 2019)
Baud
Not sure how I feel about people going on Tucker Carlson, even for a good cause.
MomSense
My kids are nowhere near as militant as I am about politics- they are usually the measured, reasonable ones but several things lately have caused them to text me saying they are approaching guillotine levels of outrage.
Is criticizing billionaires the new blackface?
And this one made me feel especially stabby.
Did you know there is a billionaires magazine?
debbie
@MomSense:
Your second link doesn’t work.
Elizabelle
The worm is turning.
Wondered where that phrase came from, and it is spot on for this situation: Wiki:
ETA: Shakespeare too! From Henry VI, part 3: ” … The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.”
MomSense
@debbie:
Ok I’ll try again.
Billionaire Magazine
Martin
@Baud: If the result was the guest punching him in the face, I’d be good with it.
dmsilev
@MomSense: “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”
dmsilev
@Baud: Even if the ‘good cause’ was slapping Tucker in the face with a large flounder?
Martin
@MomSense: A subscription to Billionaire Magazine should cost $1B, as proof that you deserve to read the magazine.
MomSense
@dmsilev:
Those greedy motherfuckers probably deleted it.
Picture a photo of a very expensive yacht – fit for a billionaire. The caption for the photo is
Baud
@dmsilev: The flounder deserves better.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin:
@dmsilev: Maybe Fucker Carlson should have Baud as a guest.
MomSense
@Martin:
1billion dollars and a throat punch.
SFAW
Wealth is created FOR the top, not “by” nor “at” the top.
Same as it ever was,
Same as it ever was.
PS: And, like clockwork, this site crashed the browser window
debbie
@dmsilev:
Just as well. It looks highly annoying.
Uncle Omar
Off topic: De Facto President Coulter has informed her underling to veto the budget compromise or she will no longer allow him to occupy his current residence.
Baud
@SFAW:
I’ll be honest. I read the Guardian pieces, and I didn’t like the whole “where wealth is created” argument. It’s fine as a call-to-arms polemic, but it’s not really precise as an economic matter, although it reads like an economic argument.
jeffreyw
@Martin:
We don’t expect to sell many copies at that price, but we only need to sell one.
Sab
Rutger Bregman has a very cool accent: American with a wisp of British.
debbie
@Martin:
A Platinum subscription is a steal, then, at only $28,000! Plus, “As Seen on TV!”
laura
Bring on the confiscatory tax rates and estate taxes to wring the idle capital out of their soft hands and start using it for the public good.
dmsilev
@Uncle Omar: She’s not even willing to let him go the “sign bill, wave magic wand of emergency declaration” approach?
Yarrow
@MomSense:
It’s pretty easy to understand how the French Revolution happened. The billionaires think their money is going to save them. It isn’t.
Steve in the ATL
Anyone in Chattanooga tonight? I suddenly have a free evening!
debbie
@Uncle Omar:
Now she’s worked up because “thousands of likes” have disappeared from this tweet:
Could SHS be that devious?
trollhattan
@jeffreyw:
Each copy contains a gatefold image of mansion/yacht/jet/island so that readers may tell their acquaintances “I subscribe for the articles.”
different-church-lady
I say this every time the subject comes up: I don’t care if billionaires are billionaires. What I care about is whether billionaires fuck things up for everyone else so badly that I can’t even make my modest little life work anymore.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The thesis of the article seems a bit over the top; Google is a parasite because they figured out how get revenue for their service threw advertisement; you mean like a newspaper or TV station? I would think practices like Google firing their staff after six months or buying the city of Menlo Park is far more toxic to the economy than advertisement.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL: I heard busting unions was pretty easy in Tennessee.
Lalophobia
Bregman’s cool but people are sleeping on Winnie Byanyima.
trollhattan
@debbie:
Has she called him “tiny” yet? She’ll run out of fresh ammo pretty soon.
Brachiator
There was a fun post about the Tucker Carlson blow-up at Gizmodo this morning. Historian Who Shamed Davos Elites Says Tucker Carlson Called Him a ‘Fucking Moron’ In Meltdown
Sab
@different-church-lady: That’s pretty much my position also.
?BillinGlendaleCA
(Being it’s an open thread…)
Here’s a pic of the Orion Nebula that I took last night here in the bright lights of Glendale.
aliasofwestgate
This is good to hear, but at the moment i’m feeling a bit raw from dealing with MI’s ‘long term care’ bullshit even if someone is only in a nursing facility for another 3 months for ‘restorative’ physical therapy. They are literally entitled to all of my mother’s income AND the medicaid payments because that’s the law. Fuck any intention of her retaining her home. I’d go for financial aid on my own, but i can’t do that with my asshole brother living in the house and in general looking over my fucking shoulder about everything even if i don’t WANT him to. This is where a universal basic income would be handy, but that’s far too long out of reach. So i get to go freelance job hunting with chronic pain. Fun, yeah? Eat the rich sounds really good at the moment, but i’d settle for taxing the bastards to get some of their money back to pay Mom’s bills instead of the state’s radical laws allowing confiscation of any and all income to the patient if in a facillty–even temporary.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: That’s how he has time for dinner.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: That’s why he has a free evening.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Is it even possible to earn billions without fucking others over? It seems to me that even success has become predatory.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Nice.
@aliasofwestgate: I’m sorry.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Gin & Tonic:
That was my point!
Steve in the ATL
@debbie: no.
rikyrah
Peter Daou (@peterdaou) Tweeted:
SLOWLY:
REPUBLICAN
LAWMAKERS
HAVE
=> ZERO <=
MORAL
STANDING
WHILE
THEIR
PARTY
CODDLES
WHITE
SUPREMACISTS
KIDNAPS
MIGRANT
BABIES
SHRUGS
AT
SCHOOL
MASSACRES
EQUIVOCATES
ON
NEO-NAZIS
AND
STEALS
HEALTH
CARE
FROM
SICK
PEOPLE
TO
ENRICH
BILLIONAIRES.
https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1095117345356464128?s=17
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I had a lot of clouds in Patagonia, unfortunately, where Orion stands on his head.
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
How far away from home did you need to go to get a shot that clear?
MomSense
@aliasofwestgate:
I’m really sorry.
Citizen Alan
@debbie:
It looks like Sharper Image for the .1%,
Mike in NC
Apparently the Fat Bastard briefly published a magazine with his name on the cover, but like most of his ridiculous scams, nobody who wasn’t a gullible moron wanted anything to do with it. Oprah could do it because she’s a lot richer and smarter.
Sebastian
@debbie:
No, it’s always by exploiting a loophole. See Amazon and no sales tax.
Leto
@Yarrow: That’s one of the things I’ve never understood about the elite and their doomsday scenarios where they supposedly have guards to protect them. Why would they? What are they going to pay them with? Everything they need to live will be right there, and they have the guns. Why do they need extra whiny mouths to feed? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
different-church-lady
@debbie: I’m not even talking about individuals. I’m talking about fucking over the entire economy. It almost happened in 2008, where the entire thing almost toppled over. But it can happen in other ways, like if their appetite for pushing wealth upward gets so out of control that there really is NOTHING left for us proles.
debbie
@Citizen Alan:
Right? I guess when you have that much money, you can piss it away on stupid stuff.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
There used to be “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”, so I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a magazine about billionaires. It’s for people who want to dream about how wonderful it would be to be filthy rich.
B.B.A.
@debbie: As Balzac put it, behind every great fortune there is a great crime.
Yarrow
@aliasofwestgate: That sounds awful. I’m so sorry. Dealing with elders is tough. Elder care is really tough. You have probably already seen all these resources but Eldercare Locator can be useful. I have found Eldercare Matters to have useful information as well. Some of the legal articles can be helpful. Sending good thoughts.
ThresherK
@debbie: Wasn’t Colbert Platinum a segment on the Report which one had to qualify economically to watch?
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore:
Is there a magazine for middle aged people who want to dream about how wonderful it would be to have retirement savings above four figures?
debbie
@different-church-lady:
I see no evidence that any of them (I’m looking at you, banks) learned any lessons from 2008. Stress tests are a joke.
Duane
@debbie: The subscriber’s list to Billionaire would be useful for tumbrel assignment.
Eating the rich will require some effort. Fuckers not gonna herd themselves.
Leto
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It looks like a phoenix rising.
@aliasofwestgate: I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’m going through something similar so I definitely know where you’re coming from.
B.B.A.
@Sebastian: That loophole was closed last year in South Dakota v. Wayfair. This also benefits Amazon, because smaller e-commerce sites don’t have the resources to keep up with our eleventy billion micro-jurisdictions and their separate sales tax rates.
aliasofwestgate
@Baud: I’ll be okay. I’m just pissed off about the law in general. Which means i get to put up with this asshole of my brother for 3 months even after i find some way to bring in enough income to contribute to bills. I did not want him ‘swooping’ into the place as teh rescue but that’s exactly what he did. I’ve been my mom’s caretaker for years, and this shit annoys the crap out of me. I’m the elder sister by 6 years and he’s acting like he’s the one who’s been helping mom manage her finances the entire time. He pretty much expects to control everything i do, up to and including finding a job i can do. I’d rather not wake up in agony every morning from my permanent abdominal pain from endometriosis because i’m stuck as a retail monkey doing physical labor that puts me into a permanent state of flare up. Getting him to understand that shit is hitting my head against a brick wall. *sighs*
ETA: Mom is of sound mind, she needs the rehab to get her basic mobility back. She’s been disabled for well over a decade now, and i’m here to deal with whatever else she can’t do. Definitely not end of life or anything.
Kraux Pas
@Baud:
Can we start re-branding “Right to Work” laws as “Right to Mooch,” As in right to benefit from representation while not paying for it and slowly starving the union of resources?
Yarrow
@Leto: I know! It’s like they think their money makes it so they’ll be the ones in charge forever. That’s not how it’s going to work in those scenarios.
And there’s real basic stuff, like who’s gong to take care of the trash? And where are the doctors for when they get sick? Who do they call when the internet goes out? It’s like they think they can just live on a compound and need nothing else. It’s bizarre.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Sebastian: Even that’s kind of debatable – Amazon doesn’t have to pay for stores, just warehouses so even with a internet sales tax they will be cheaper that any book store chain. Not to mention Borders and Barnes and Noble who were Amazon’s competition went full retard and opened so many stories they ended up competing with themselves.
Stuart Frasier
I work for an ultra-wealthy person who has been radicalized by Donald Trump. Even then, I was kind of amazed last night at dinner when he was advocating for punitive taxes on the rich.
debbie
@Duane:
The CEO of Billionaire Magazine likely agrees with you.
geg6
Question for the BJ hive mind:
My sister is a professor at a local university that has a large number of Saudi students funded by one of the many princes. One of those students came to her office for a meeting about a paper he was writing and came out to her as gay. He is well aware of the danger he would be in if he went home. She is concerned that if he tried to get asylum here in the US, the cozy Trump relationship with MBS would put him in danger, too. She says he’s already meeting with a mental health counselor affiliated with the university, so his mental/emotional health issues are being dealt with. But any ideas about what he should do? I think Canada, myself, but what do I know?
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
I believe that’s called “AARP Magazine” or something similar.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Thanks!
Baud
@Kraux Pas: Agreed. We need to rethink union obligations in places where workers aren’t required to pay union dues.
debbie
@geg6:
I agree. Canada or someplace more sympathetic, at least until Trump’s gone.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: I noticed the difference in orientation when I looked at the kid’s Milky Way pics from New Zealand.
@debbie: About 20 feet from my front door.
Another Scott
Evening all.
A book that we probably all should have handy in coming months – Handbook for a Post-Roe America (free eBook download).
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@aliasofwestgate: I am also the local caretaker sibling with other helicopter siblings. I can’t offer you anything except best wishes, but some of the other jackals have really good advice.
Roger Moore
@B.B.A.:
Which is one reason Amazon is set up as a platform for third-party sellers as well as selling stuff themselves. Though honestly, there’s probably a business opportunity in creating some kind of platform that would make it practical for tiny e-commerce sites to deal with sales taxes throughout the country.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ThresherK: Yes.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Leto:
True, I was thinking that as well. Should send it to the kid, matches her tat.
ruemara
@different-church-lady: Bingo
Roger Moore
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It’s true that Amazon has some structural advantages, but brick and mortar stores have their own advantages. People still like shopping in person because they can see and touch the things they’re buying in person and they get what they want immediately. And Amazon does have to pay for shipping, or to add shipping costs. I think dodging sales taxes, especially in high tax locations like California, was a major draw.
Leto
@Yarrow: Yeah, it’s just crazy. There’s all the little things that need to be taken care of (you didn’t pay me to change light bulbs, nor to scrub that toilet), as well as medical/dental/technology/etc… how much does a banana cost, $10?
@geg6: Is there any chance the student could get a permanent job here in the states? Is he obligated to return? How close is he to getting his degree? I ask that because he might be able to wait out the Trumpov admin. If not, Canada is always there. At the very least I hope he gets the help he needs while he’s able.
aliasofwestgate
@Sab: They do! I got the advice and i’ve a friend who’s doing the same for her Dad. She’s an only child so she has some leeway in things, plus being in another state. Right now i’m just trying to cool off after the nastier bits of the law just slapped me in the face today after doing so last week as well. Putting up with the neanderthal who thinks i’ll do anything he tells me to will take longer. Especially since i know my limits and he doesn’t.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s for people who cleared the four-figure bar long before.
Amir Khalid
@Duane:
I doubt that there’d be many actual billionaires on Billionaire‘s subscriber roll. Actual billionaires don’t have time to read about billionairing in a magazine. They spend all day doing it.
MomSense
@geg6:
They shouldn’t do anything until they speak with a really good attorney.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: They got away with that since they claimed they didn’t have brick’n mortar here in California, now they have Amazon stores.
NotMax
@debbie
Sure it is.
Oh, wait. You meant in a world populated by more than one person.
Never mind.
:)
MomSense
@Another Scott:
If it comes to it, I will take women across the border into Canada. My Subie can manage the logging and back roads.
Gelfling 545
@Elizabelle: Both coincidentally and off topic, I have been reading a book called The Earth Moved which is all about earthworm, their importance and the fact that they, as well the better recognized insects vital to our planet’s health are being decimated by overdevelopment.
Sab
@aliasofwestgate: It’s important to know your limits. I almost died a few years ago because I was too busy taking care of my Dad to look after my own health issue.
Dead caretakers aren’t much use to anyone.
Jay
@geg6:
LBGTQ is a protected refugee status in Canada.
The student needs to:
– make sure their passport is good to the end of their scholarship,
– never go home or to a Sawdi Embassy or Consulate,
– never go on vacation to a Sawdi Enabling state like Thailand, or even fly through them,
– wait until their paid scholarship is done, and if things arn’t different in the US by them, come north. They should arrange between now and then, to have an Immigration lawyer, ( paid or probono) meet them at the border and be familiar with their case.
Jay
@MomSense:
You don’t need to. Just cross at any legal border crossing, state the reason for your business, and come on in,
Or go to California.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
That broken link might be to an individual tweet they deleted. Just go to the Billionaire Magazine main Twitter page. It’s horrifying enough.
@MomSense:
The site is riddled with inspirational quotes tied to photographs of wretched excess. @HoarseWisperer had a field day with it.
ETA: Yeah, they deleted the Thoreau tweet.
germy
So I take it Bregman’s interview won’t be airing on Carlson?
Duane
@Amir Khalid: Any name on that list is suspect. The aspiring billionaires might be the worst. True Believers.
TaMara (HFG)
You can’t see me, but I gave that video a standing ovation.
geg6
@Jay:
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will psss this along. I knew I could get good advice here!
germy
Check and mate, libs
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
I can’t believe how dumb they are. I feel sort of protective about Thoreau (pronounce thorough) so this really bothered me.
Steeplejack
@B.B.A.:
Time to bring out my evergreen Balzac explainer.
Jay
@geg6:
There’s a bunch of Sawdi refugee’s here, along with LBGTQ groups that are refugee centric.
The student should use a clean computer/cellphone, keep it locked, use anonomizing software and encryption, and make contact with such groups in the nearest Canadian big city, about a year before their scholarship is over.
They need to assume that they have already been “outed” or will be soon, in every interaction with a family member/friend/Sawdi official.
When they come to Canada, they need to come “out”. Because a lot of LGTBQ immigrants and refugee’s stay in the closet to maintain relationships with family/friends/community, there are people who will prey on them.
Jay
@germy:
“Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats Dispute Claims That Russia Probe Found No Collusion
“The president is terrified about where our investigation…may lead.”
DAN FRIEDMAN
FEBRUARY 12, 2019 6:29 PM”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/senate-intelligence-committee-democrats-dispute-claims-russia-probe-found-no-collusion/
Another one of the top 10,000 lefty blogs has already written that the story is bs from a well known Trumpist gaslighter.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
“Chaucer!”
“Rabble-ayz!”
“Ball-zac!”
– The Music Man
B.B.A.
@Steeplejack: Eh, he may not have meant it like that, but I do. All property is stolen if you trace the chain of title far back enough.
Kay
“Cambridge Who’s Who” is hysterical. You don’t even need to know more than the name.
Sebastian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
True. Now how about those proverbial abusive work conditions in their warehouses?
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
“Beethoven”
“Mozart”
“Chopin”
“Liszt”
“Brahms”
“Panties …I’m sorry!”
– Monty Python
Kay
imagine for a moment if Chelsea Clinton called teachers “losers”
debbie
@Kay:
I remember Cambridge always posting ads for sales reps on craigslist.
dimmsdale
@geg6: I am about 99% sure there is either a group or several groups of lawyers willing to handle immigration cases for free. (The big airport demonstration a year or 2 ago welcoming immigrants had, I think, more attorneys showing up offering free immigration help than there were immigrants.)
Also, there’s this, which I haven’t searched out too much–if you scroll to the end of the pane, there are logos of a number of advocacy groups that might be able to help.
https://www.immigrationadvocates.org/projects/
dimmsdale
@aliasofwestgate: I am really sorry for your circumstances, any ONE of which would be trying enough, but together—blech! I got a lot of moral support and good strategies from a caregivers’ group I was in when my mom was entering frail elderly status. The group was FOR the people taking care, and was attached to a geriatric social work unit at one of the hospitals here. I don’t know if that’s practical for you or not, but if so, I can tell you I got a good deal of relief (sorely needed) from being involved in the group. Good luck!
debbie
@debbie:
And they’re already well on their way…
Ladyraxterinok
@laura: I don’t understand how we collectively have forgotten the tax rates under Ike. Those rates and the GI Bill created the ‘golden age’ of the post WWII period that is the America the MAGAts want to go back to.
Yes, I do realize that era was bad for non-whites and to a lesser extent for white women.
Sab
@Kay: I cannot imagine her doing that, so the rest of your “imagine…” makes no sense. I expect you understand my problem.
Ladyraxterinok
@Lalophobia: Sorry, don’t get it. Sleeping where?
Ladyraxterinok
@different-church-lady: Slave labor of our entire family for a 1 percenter?!
Ladyraxterinok
@Yarrow: Wasn’t there a really weird TV series about a doctor just on call for the really super rich?
Ksmiami
@Yarrow: ironically as society breaks down, their private security forces will turn on their billionaire clients first… can’t say I’m sympathetic
NotMax
@Ladyraxterinok
House spin-off series, McMansion?
:)
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I care if they are billionaires because most who got to be a billionaire did so on the backs of a lot of other people and they didn’t do it kindly. And the reality is that half a billion makes a pretty good nest egg if you don’t just throw it away. But a billion or more is far more than anyone needs and usually leads to just throwing it away on gold toilets because otherwise, who would know that you are a rich cocksucker.
Name 10 billionaires who aren’t scum sucking assholes.
laura
@Ladyraxterinok: We’ve always been at war with middle class America, and working class America, and working poor America.
Our collective amnesia is quite astounding.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus: how about name one?
thalarctosMaritimus
@Steve in the ATL: Nick Hanauer, maybe?
Anne Laurie
@MomSense: This tweet? (Yes, they deleted it, after getting ragged all over the twitterverse):
Vhh
@Yarrow: The undertaxed French upper classes learned, too late, that another name for taxes is “life insurance for the 1%.’
PJ
@debbie: “Predatory” is kind of the definition for success in America. Mitt Romney didn’t pull himself up by the $100,000 bootstraps his dad lent him by actually building up sustainable businesses.
PJ
@different-church-lady: Being a billionaire is never enough; the real joy comes in knowing the lives and welfare of every “taker” is dependent on the whims of their generosity.
billcinsd
@Ladyraxterinok: Royal Pains? It featured a doctor who got canned for being more concerned with saving lives than making money, who ends up as a concierge doctor in the Hamptons. Ran on USA from 2009-2016